Conventional wireless networks typically provide for handover operations or transactions in which a mobile device switches from a first channel to a second channel. Handover transactions can occur for a variety of reasons, some of the more common of which are to enable the mobile device to maintain a call or data session even when traveling in and out of the effective ranges of cells; to enable interoperability of disparate network technologies; to allow more efficient sharing of network resources; to avoid interference, or to better suit behavior such as high travel speed or to enable required or desired features or services.
Regardless of the purpose or nature of the handover transaction, in some cases, handover transactions end in a failure for one reason or another. In modern Long Term Evolution (LTE) communication networks, evidence of handover failures can be determined by an associated serving gateway, however, in LTE networks, the serving gateway has no control over the communication path that is selected, and therefore cannot take any suitable action to remedy the problem. As a result, a call or other data session can be dropped by the LTE network, leading to customer dissatisfaction. Accordingly, conventional LTE networks do not adequately handle handover failures with respect to maintaining a call in spite of a handover failure. For example, an eNB (or other network entity) can fail to accept a handover due to one or more issues associated with the eNB (or other network entity), even though that eNB has been selected to receive the handover.